I recently hosted an event in the European Parliament with the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) where two reports were presented about life long learning. One of the EAEA’s leading lights is former MEP Sue Waddington, and it was good to see her again and to have the opportunity to participate in an excellent meeting.
Tom Schuller and David Watson offered an authoritative and coherent strategic framework for lifelong learning in the UK, articulating a broad rationale for public and private investment in lifelong learning, a re-appraisal of the social and cultural value attached to it by policy-makers and the public and developing new perspectives on policy and practice.
“Learning Through Life – Inquiry in to the Future of Life Long Learning” also states that though the UK is quite good when compared with other European Countries, with high participation rates in education and training, and quite high levels of flexibility in formal education, there are a number of problems. Probably the most important of these problems is the demographic challenge: the balance of opportunity and support for learning through different stages of life is wrong. With an increasingly aging population, the amount of money spent on educating those aged between 18-25 is so much more than all other adult age groups combined. As well as this there are some interesting statistics which show that, after the age of 25, the percentage of women involved in Life Long Learning starts to increase.
The other report presented by Jyri Manninen and co-authored with Saara Luukannel was entitled, ‘The Effects of Adult Learning: The meaning and significance of nonformal learning in the lives of adults’ mainly covered nonformal education in Finland.
The main feature of nonformal education in Finland is ‘a diversity of curricula’, covering a huge range of topics, not just more traditional subjects, but arts and crafts and local history studies. 50% of Finnish Adult population participated in adult education in 2006 so it was a perfect place to do a study the effects of nonformal education from the learner’s point of view. The study discovered that the most common effects of adult and nonformal education were an enthusiasm to continue learning (93%). Opportunities for career and livelihood development benefited the least, but even in this regard 30-40% reported at least some positive development. The study also found that there are broader improvements in society such as an increase in social capital and social cohesion; general skills and attitudes regarding active citizenship; sense of community; and the birth of social networks.
I’m sure both these reports will make a significant contribution to the European Parliament’s continuing work on life long learning. My colleague in the Culture and Education Committee, Maria Badia i Cutchet, included a section in a recent report about adult learning, and the EU 2020 strategy has made life long learning one of its top priorities.
An umbrella group with more than 100 member organisations from 34 countries working in the field of adult learning, the EAEA represents more than 50 million women and men learners from across Europe and promotes adult learning and the widening of access and participation in formal and non-formal adult education for all, particularly for groups the most in need and the under-represented. EAEA believes that the purposes of learning may be for personal fulfilment or skills for employment; for social change and active citizenship; for sustainable development and gender mainstreaming; for cultural and intercultural awareness and knowledge. They have a very positive ethos towards adult education and this event was a great demonstration of the kind of forward thinking and innovation they are seeking to support.
A really interesting post – it’s a shame that despite the clear need to enhance training, it’s more likely that we will see restraints in the near future: http://bit.ly/9vbYyo
It would be interesting to see whether their study distinguished between different types of training and thus, which trainings contributed most to a positive development in careers. Companies could then look to focus on those that are most important during times of cut back. For example, given the increasing role of ICT in all jobs (a recent study: http://bit.ly/bPYRQh implied that some 90% of all jobs will require e-skills in 5 years time) the European e-Skills Association believes that e-skills, including digital literacy should be prioritised.